


An Accumulation of Small Decisions

by alamorn



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Cunnilingus, Menstrual Sex, Multi, Orgasm Control, POV Multiple, Premature Ejaculation, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:09:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23398267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: An unexpected bump on the road of the marriage of Sounis and Eddis
Relationships: Eddis | Helen/The Magus/Sophos
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13
Collections: Smut 4 Smut 2020





	An Accumulation of Small Decisions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jonphaedrus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/gifts).



> Sorry I couldn't give you dick eating, and I hope this is an acceptable substitute!
> 
> Title from a passage in A Conspiracy of Kings: "...I was promoted to wall building and found I had a gift for it. Something about the careful choosing and positioning of stones, something about the way something so durable grew out of an accumulation of small decisions, filled me with satisfaction."

I have come to you for help; my shame over the asking is less than my shame at the failure, so here I am. I know you will not laugh, and I must ask that you not show pity, either, though I know you are not prone to it. This is my shame talking, not our history.

It is about my wife who is Eddis. No, there is no issue of compatibility, now that we are living together and not just writing to each other. I like her more with each passing day, and she assures me of the same, in her own way. No, the issue is...

I should start from the beginning. After the wedding ceremony, after the feast, during the dancing. That's when it started, if I must pick a moment. I danced first with my wife who is Eddis, and then with many ladies of the court before I was able to catch up my wife who is Eddis once more. You'll have to pardon me; I know you know her as well as I do, probably better, after your long captivity, such as it was. I know you know her name. I know you know her title. I still can't believe that among her titles is now _wife_ , and I like the way the word fits in my mouth. 

Have you ever danced with her? You sit so still, I must assume you have, and you found it similarly beguiling. Don't blush! I could not fault you for that. She dances wonderfully, doesn't she? I forget, when she wears her dresses, that she was trained as a soldier, as all of her cousins were. I forget, when I am not in her arms, how strong they are. 

When we were dancing, I found myself wishing we were without an audience. I found myself wishing... forgive me, this is hard to admit, even to you.

I was aroused, during our dance. She was, as well. Her eyes were dark, and her hands lingered on my shoulders, the back of my neck, my arms. She delighted in touching me, and I in her, and we both delighted in being touched. It was more than I had ever hoped for in a marriage, and her as well. I do not think she would have had as easy a wedding with my uncle who was Sounis.

Don't wince. You were right, that the countries must be bound. It is right that rulers not be sentimental. It is only human that we are.

After the dancing, when we went to our rooms, we did as you are meant to do on your wedding night. Eugenides gave me some small advice, which was, "Save the tears for after," but neither of us cried. Nothing was thrown, save clothing. I had never known I would like kissing so well, until I kissed my wife who is Eddis.

There were other things I liked well. Too well, even. I had barely gotten between her legs when I-- when I... spent.

Not very kingly, I know; but then, I was not supposed to actually become king. That is why I come to you; she will not say it, but she is disappointed, each time I am unable to bring her to pleasure. It has been a week, and every night is the same. We go to our rooms, we kiss, we undress, I embarrass myself.

That is why I come to you. You have been my best tutor, excepting Moira, and she has many advantages over any man. You, I trust above all others. You, I know will help me.

\--

Normally, the magus had no difficulty remembering that Sophos was Sounis. He had been so changed in the process, and that his face had been changed as well only helped. It was easy to look at Sounis, with his scarred face and hard shoulders and think him a warrior king. It was only when the magus looked more deeply at his dreamy eyes that he saw the boy who had been his favorite apprentice, in love with poetry and learning. 

He had asked for time to discover the best solution to this problem of Sounis and Eddis, which was not a problem he had anticipated. He had plans after plans for how best to deal with disputes over land and money and trade, the garrisoning of soldiers, the raising of taxes, reparations for the war that had so recently been upon them. He had no plans for their bedroom. He had rather thought they would handle it themselves.

The magus understood, of course, why Sounis who was Sophos had come to _him_. There were few Sounis trusted, after his painful rise to power, and Attolis was both distant and had his own marital issues. To go to Eddis' physician would be unthinkable, though Galen was more than trustworthy for ill-health and injury. Sounis himself did not yet have a settled retinue, let alone a trustworthy one. His barons were still searching for ways to prove themselves his allies, but the ground was not so steady as to admit to them there was difficulty conceiving an heir. 

And the magus was his advisor. In this, as in all things, the magus would do his research and discover the best path forward.

That he was now consumed with the thought of them together did not need to be mentioned.

But the thoughts struck him at the most inopportune times -- when he was paging through books of herbal remedies, of course, but also when he was having breakfast, or going over the tax records, trying to ferret out which of the traitorous barons had hidden away his fortune during the turmoil. It was deeply inconvenient. 

He would be going about his day, and his days were always full -- he had had little free time before the wars, and had less now -- and then he would realize he had lost several moments in his imagining. Eddis and Sounis together, not their countries, but themselves. Helen and Sophos. Their matching crooked noses, the way they looked at each other, even in public, magnified by privacy. The arms and shoulders that Sophos had built, moving dirt and building walls, and the muscles that Helen had gotten from using a sword. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Sophos' red-faced shame.

And the magus would come back to himself, not quite hard, but aching somewhere deep in the pit of his stomach with the sort of longing he'd thought long behind him. He'd thought he'd left it in his youth, or at least in the hinterlands of Eddis, among the weeds and herbs and flowers and dirt.

The first solution he presented Sounis with was an herbal remedy, an old wives tale, but one that had been corroborated in several sources. He'd taken the time to gather the herbs himself, not wanting to entrust the task to someone who might not know their plants, or worse, know them too well, and wonder at the need. If he had to call himself impotent to save his king embarrassment, he would, but so much better that no one suspected.

The next day, Sounis came to him, and the magus didn't even have to ask. One look at Sounis' face told him there had been no success.

"Have you tried giving her pleasure before taking your own?" the magus asked, as delicately as he could. Eddis seemed likely to know her own body, but it was possible that was his own fantasy, and not a clear-eyed assessment. 

Sounis stared at him, bright red and puzzled.

"With your mouth," the magus suggested, doing his best to remain clinical and professional, and not think about how much he would like to get his mouth on Helen.

The next day, Sounis cornered him. "She liked that much better," he said, speaking quickly, as if he could talk faster than he could blush. He could not. "But it did not solve the ... issue in its entirety."

"If you spend earlier in the day, does it help?"

"Oh?" said Sounis, growing even brighter. When he blushed this hard, the scars on his face stood out ropy and white. "Um. Let me get back to you."

When Sounis got back to him, he burst out miserably, "She's _too_ beautiful and I don't deserve her."

The magus bit back a laugh; it wasn't funny, not really, except that when Sounis had only been the magus' apprentice, he had been similarly easy to fluster, similarly devoted to learning the things that he loved. As much as the magus loved Sounis, he loved Sophos as well. It was good to see the boy had not died for his crown.

"You might have to pray," he said, not quite joking, not quite anything else. The gods were too real and too petty for it to be anything else; he'd heard what they'd told Gen, when he sulked too long for their tastes. If this was god-given, the solution must be as well, but if it was god-given, there was a reason. The gods had told Sounis that he was not necessary; it was the magus' fear that an heir would be against their plans.

How much easier life had been, when the gods were merely stories to tell around a fire.

"I don't think I could stand it," Sophos admitted, slumping into a chair in the corner of the magus' office.

"I understand," the magus said, and he did. He had not met the gods, not truly, and it had been so long since he'd held Hamiathes' Gift that he'd almost, but not quite, forgotten the surety of it. But the magus had always been skilled at tracking cause and effect, and the gods were skilled at choosing the smallest action with the largest consequence. "In that case, I will need to do more research."

\--

It was less than a week after that when Eddis came to him, almost a month after the wedding, and the moment he looked on her, attendants shed in the hall behind the door, he remembered every letter they had exchanged. His teasing promises to train Sophos well for her, not just as a king but as a man.

She leaned back against the door, tilted her head back and closed her eyes, tension leaving her body in a great swell, as he admired the line of her throat. Eddis drew a deep breath, and her voice, when she spoke, was soft so that it would not travel through the door. "Will you obey me as your sovereign, or must I get Sophos to say this?"

The magus sat up straight, lay down his pen carefully. He did not rise, not yet. If she was sending him away for his failure... his knees were weak at the thought. "My Queen," he said, "that depends entirely upon the command."

She smiled crookedly, not quite a grin, but a smile he had seen on Gen, when he was pleased with himself and little else. The family resemblance was so strong sometimes that he had gone past kicking himself over missing it and accepted it as a command to humility. "Come to our bed."

His eyebrows shot up. "I beg your pardon, My Queen."

She strode towards him, long skirts whispering across his thick rugs, and perched on the edge of his desk. A deliberate coquetry; he wondered who had told her to do it. Not the Queen of Attolia, he hoped. "You never beg, and I hope you won't start now. Come to our bed."

"My Queen," the magus said slowly, thinking, leaning back in his chair so he could look at her. There was a fierce blush rising in her cheeks, but her gaze was steady. He knew his answer, and thought she did too. "How could I say no?"

"Easily," she said, not turning her face. "And it would never be mentioned again. I come to you not as your queen but as your friend. Help us in this. There will be no reward, no punishment. If you say no, Sounis will not ask your help again."

No reward, she said, as though he had not loved them both for years. No punishment, as if he would ever forgive himself. "When?" he asked, and was gratified at the relief she was unable to hide. 

"Are you available tonight?" she asked. "My monthlies are due soon, and I would like-" she cut herself off, but her blush spoke for her.

"Tonight," he said. "How would you like me to get in?"

Her smile then was sly. "The Thieves of Eddis have had their hands in Sounis' megaron as well."

"I assumed," he huffed, instincts warring. He didn't particularly want to have to crawl along a windowsill or something similarly undignified, but neither did he want an assassin to be able to find a passage directly to the king's bedchamber.

"Come with me," she said, and led him to a tapestry and a hidden door behind it. He twisted his mouth, looking from the hidden door to his desk, and then followed.

The hidden passages were not extensive -- they couldn't be, or they would have been noticed. But they connected halls and rooms and vents that would have otherwise been difficult to traverse without being seen. Quicker than he expected, Eddis led him to her bedchamber.

"There's more direct routes," she said, "but I refuse to crawl through a fireplace in this dress." She glanced over him, lingering at his shoulders. "And I don't think you'd fit."

"Ah, so there's a reason Gen is so small," the magus said, trying to hide how out of breath he was.

"Long generations have bred for it," she said, straight-faced, though her eyes twinkled. 

"If I don't remember the way," the magus said, contemplating remembering all the twists and turns, and Eddis interrupted him, a smile tugging the corner of her mouth.

"I have faith in you," she said. "After all, did you not want to be the King's Thief?"

"That was years ago, My Queen," he said easily, "and I have long accepted my role."

\--

When it was time, he made only two wrong turns, and when he emerged in the royal chambers, he found Eddis sitting on the bed and Sounis pacing. "What if he doesn't - oh," Sounis said, when he swung around and saw the magus. "You made it," he said, swiftly turning red.

"Of course, My King." The magus let fondness curl through his voice, and possessiveness too. Sophos had made himself king, but the magus flattered himself to think that he had been integral. Sophos had been his, before he was Sounis.

"I didn't think you'd-- thank you," Sounis said.

"Yes," said Eddis, rising to greet him, a small, warm smile on her lips, intimate even here, in their bedroom. "Thank you."

The magus did not blush -- he was unlike his Majesties, in that way. But warmth did spread through him, starting low in his stomach and suffusing up into his chest. And down, into his groin, though he ignored that. He was here to help, not take his own pleasure. That he would do later, in his own room.

"Show me," the magus said, mouth dry. "Show me what you do."

Blushing furiously, Sounis began to undress Eddis. He undid her belt, so the halves of the chiton fell loose from her body, but there was no time for the magus to try and catch a glimpse of her hips beneath the fabric before Sounis was pulling loose the fibulae at her shoulders, jeweled hawks that had been a gift from her cousin who was Attolis. With the first, the chiton fell to reveal Helen's breasts and hips, the dark bush of her pubic hair. 

When Sophos pulled the second fibula, the fabric whispered to the ground, crumpled, and Helen stepped over it. The magus watched the long muscles of her thighs as she walked over to the bed, saw a shiny slickness between them. When she sat on the edge of the bed, she tossed down a pillow between her feet, glanced up and met the magus' gaze, and spread her knees.

Sophos sank between them, kneeling on the pillow she had thrown down, and nuzzled between her legs. The magus drew closer. They had done this often enough it seemed, in the past week, that Sophos knew how to begin. The magus sat beside her, only a handsbreath away, an intimacy that still felt daring, despite her nakedness. Together, they watched as Sophos lay kisses on her inner thighs, then parted her lips and set his own to them.

Helen's head fell back, not all the way, but enough that the tendons stood out, and she said, "Oh," very softly, just audible over the soft, wet sounds in her lap. Her hand covered the magus' on the bed between them, and stayed there, dry and warm, as Sophos worked. The magus was torn between trying to see her folds, Sophos' tongue, and watching Helen's face. Her eyes kept fluttering shut, and each time she forced them back open. Sweat stood out on her temples and in the hollow of her throat, and when she came, she did so subtly, clenching and releasing, her hand on his tightening almost to the point of pain.

She reached down, languid, and ran her hand through Sophos' hair, and he pulled back, resting his cheek on her inner thigh, and looking so besottedly in love that it took a long moment to realize there was blood on his face. The magus reached down and rubbed at the blood and slick covering Sophos' chin -- was this how he looked, when the slavers beat him? But no, he was too happy to be in pain.

Helen, on the other hand, understood immediately. "Blast," she muttered. "I'm sorry to have called you for nothing -- we'll have to try when my bleeding's ended."

"What?" Sophos asked, then looked once more at the space between her thighs. Despite his recent work, fresh blood was clear on his fingers, the slick pink of her inner lips. "Oh." Then: "We can keep going. Unless -- I mean, I'm willing if you are."

"My Queen," the magus murmured, hoping that keeping his voice quiet would keep her from hearing his desperation. He didn't think he could bear to be so close and not touch. To have been in her bed and done nothing was a punishment from the gods, if he thought they paid attention to such as him. "Let us continue."

She hesitated for a long moment. Her mask here was not what it was in court; blood rode high in her cheeks, and her shoulders were stiff with embarrassment. But she acquiesced with a shrug. They would continue. The magus had been trying to ignore his own body since he had entered the room, but seeing this proof of her trust was almost too much for him. He _ached_. She had never trusted him with her country, and it was still unclear how that would change, but she would trust him with her body, and that was almost better.

"Sophos," he said, voice soft, still looking at Helen. "I will keep you from spilling. Get up here."

Sophos scrambled up onto the bed, clumsy with eagerness, and kissed Helen. She wrinkled her nose at the taste of herself on his mouth, but held him to her, hands in his hair, one leg wrapping around his hip to keep him locked to her body.

"Sophos," the magus said, and Sophos pulled away, but not far, his forehead on Helen's as he stared at the magus, questioning and intent. "Undress, My King."

Helen laughed as Sophos scrambled to pull his shirt off, and she scooted back on the bed. When Sophos was naked and crouched between Helen's legs, the magus locked his hand around the base of Sounis' cock, tight enough to prevent his embarrassment. Sounis twitched at the touch, then relaxed into the magus' grip, trusting as he always had been.

Plastered to Sophos' back as he was, the magus could feel the hammering of Sophos' heart, smell the musk of Helen's cunt, and the sharp scent of blood. It was almost too much; he could understand why Sophos embarrassed himself, night after night. If he got to lay with Helen, the magus suspected he would do no better. As it was, knowing he was incidental, present only to assist, he was so hard it almost hurt.

Together, he and Sophos pressed forward. He notched Sophos' cock against Helen's opening, and when Sophos slid home, he could feel her wetness on his hand, the fingers he had ringed around the base of Sophos' length. He panted into Sophos' neck, not meaning to, not able to stop himself.

Helen's hands found both of their heads. The fingers of one sunk into Sophos' curls once more, the fingers of the other quested past Sophos' shoulder and cupped the magus' cheek, thumb pressing against his lip until he opened his mouth and sucked it in. She gasped and he swirled his tongue, tasting the sweet lotions she was rubbed with and the bitterness of ink. Even newlywed, she did not shirk her duties. 

The magus was glad he'd failed to marry her to the previous Sounis. He hadn't deserved her. 

Sophos had paused a long time, fully settled in his wife, as if luxuriating in the sensation. Was this the first time he'd entered her without spending? When Helen took her hand from the magus' face and drew Sophos into a kiss, he mouthed desperately at Sophos' shoulder, just for something to do. He didn't know if he could make it through the night without spending himself, and that idea was almost too shameful to countenance.

With each thrust, Sophos seemed to gain confidence. With each thrust, the magus' hand was pressed tight against Helen's cunt. He had dreamed of many things over the years, but he had never dared to dream this. 

He was hard against Sophos' back, and it was only the rough fabric of his pants that kept him from spending when his cock slipped into the cleft of Sophos' buttocks. Helen wrapped a leg around them both, heel pressing into the small of the magus' back.

"I can't," Sophos panted. His arms were trembling where they were braced on the bed, and he was slick with sweat where the magus leaned against him and surrounded him.

"You can, I've got you," the magus reassured him. His grip was firm and unflinching. "Trust me."

Sophos let out a noise almost like a sob, and Helen cupped his face. "My love," she said. "My love, you can do it."

Sophos bit his lip. "For you," he said. Then, "Because of you," looking at the magus, and, entirely unexpected, kissed him. It was an awkward angle, and his teeth knocked into the magus' lip, but when the magus used his free hand to adjust Sophos' jaw, the kiss was sweet and slow.

"Oh," Helen said, then, " _oh_ , oh, do that again."

Slowly, carefully, Sophos and the magus began to move once more, but this time the magus sucked a mark onto the crook of Sophos' shoulder. It was low enough that it would only just show above the collar of his shirt, and it gave him pleasure to think of people seeing it and knowing that Sophos was loved. That they would mistake whose lips the mark came from mattered little.

Entirely without warning, Helen shuddered, once, twice, and twitched with overstimulation.

"Please," Sophos begged, and the magus relaxed his grip, felt the twitching of Sophos' dick as he spent. Sophos collapsed to the side of Helen with a groan, pulling away from the magus' arms and grinning sleepily up at him. "Thank you," he said, smile boyish and sweet despite the scar tissue attempting to twist it into something fearsome.

When he looked over at Helen, who had propped her head up on her hands and looked very nearly, but not quite, sated, the magus couldn't deny himself any longer. He was still kneeling between her legs, and with Sophos no longer between them, it was nothing to shuffle forward just a little bit and bend his head and taste her.

Sophos' seed was seeping out of her, along with blood and her own fluids. The magus licked a wide stripe, gathering all of the flavors, before focusing in on her nub, and she gasped, sinking her hands in his hair. Sophos' seed was bitter, her own wetness tangy, the blood sharp. It was a feast, and he devoured.

He licked her clean and when she shivered over another peak, she clenched her hands in his hair, dull nails digging into his scalp. Entirely without meaning to, he thrust against the bed and came, mouthing a prayer into the crease of her thigh.

When he gathered himself enough to sit up, the queen of Eddis looked well satisfied. 

She rubbed her thumb over his lips, smearing the blood and wet and seed that covered them. "You've gone above and beyond," she said. "Thank you." The amusement that danced in her eyes softened the formality.

"It was my pleasure, My Queen, My King," he said, and Helen's gaze dropped to the wet spot at the front of his trousers.

She smiled.

"Stay the night?" Sophos asked, sounding very young and very tired. He was curled in a comma towards his wife, legs drawn up not quite to his chest, his curls flat with sweat. 

Fondness welled in him. The magus dropped a kiss on his brow. "No, My King," he said regretfully. "It would be improper."

Eddis laughed and the magus conceded to smile. He left his Majesties with no little regret, but he was as sure as he had ever been that this would not be the last time.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not important but [this](http://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/fibulae-pair.jpg) is what I had in mind for Eddis' fibulae.


End file.
